


America I’m putting my queer shoulder to the wheel

by the_ocean_weekender



Category: Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1974), The Great Gatsby (2013)
Genre: 1920s, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Eventual Romance, M/M, gay disaster falls in love with bi disaster, it's about the YEARNING!, will i ever stop inflicting pain on nick? no
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:15:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25072972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_ocean_weekender/pseuds/the_ocean_weekender
Summary: 1922: Disaster, but at least Gatsby didn't die.1923: An even bigger disaster, Nick doesn't want to go to Gatsby's 4th of July party and gets very drunk with Jordan in true mlm/wlw solidarity. He's dragged to the party anyway and confesses to a love Gatsby doesn't requite. How on earth is he going to get out of this one?
Relationships: Jordan Baker & Nick Carraway, Nick Carraway/Jay Gatsby
Comments: 13
Kudos: 107





	America I’m putting my queer shoulder to the wheel

It must be said that, overall, 1923 was not a year that so far had held much promise for me and, consequently, I was rather averse to the idea of any Independence Day celebrations. Particularly those which requested my attendance. Which was why I was currently holed up (really, hiding) in Jordan’s bedroom in the Buchanan’s new East Egg mansion as the day swelled with heat, preparing to become the hottest day of the year.

“And I just- I mean, I only...” I tipped forward in my seat as the clock on the ornate mantelpiece rang twelve midday. We had had rather a lot to drink and I was truly drunk. And maudlin. “It is not that you are a woman but that you act like a man. That is what piqued my interest in you, Miss Baker.”

She was a far better drunk than I, incredibly composed with her chin tilted and her shoulders and arms arranged in careful right angles to her shiny black hair as she held the glass of whiskey up to her face. A sight akin to a Leyendecker. One ye slid right and pinned me to my chair. “Hmmm,” she said at last. “You and I are of a similar kind.”

Me relieved exhale stuttered over each one of my ribs, “We are both-?” Words failed me. None of the names for men of my kind could be applied to a fine lady, however good it felt to be talking of such shameful things in Tom’s house, knowing he’d despise every inch of us and being in his house in one of his fancy, expensive rooms anyway, perspiring on his chairs and drinking his liquor. 

She gave a delicate snort and downed the rest of her glass- her fourth. “I am sophisticated, you are a disaster.” I raised my glass in a toast. I was thirty, soon to be thirty-one, and too old and too drunk to lie to myself. Besides, it mattered less when she said it. She clinked her tumbler to mine and the sound rang through the room like church bells and died quickly, stifled under the weight of the summer air. “So, will you tell me who he is?”

Mute, I shook my head and refilled my glass- my sixth- I did not plant to spend any of this conversation remotely resembling ‘sober’. The same could have been said of a great many of my recent conversations and interactions. I was fast becoming one of those lukewarm and dispirited men, the type who one would read of in a Hemingway or Fitzgerald story; drinking like a fish and being propelled through the alcoholic currents without any firm grasp on my own life, content to sit in the shadows of men who would be immortalized in far flung countries.

Jordan inclined her head to the side, making her gaze even longer, the analytical look on her face not quite a smile. “Gatsby?” Against my will, I flinched. Now she _did_ smile, without any shred of emotion in it. “Before or after Wilson nearly killed him?”

I screwed my eyes shut at the memory, “Before.” Since the first time I had met him, or probably predating even that, but I did not need to divulge that to her.

She tutted, the same sound as the pages of a magazine being flicked, “Do you always go for the ones who don’t want you?”

“Do you?” I stated, boldly.

To her credit, her eyebrows only raised a fraction of an inch. She was, apparently, as prepared for my not-mentioning my unmentionable cousin as she was a particularly tricky round of golf. “No, as a matter of fact. This is the first time-“ she brought herself to a close very primly and all of a sudden I felt sorry for her, this hard, limited woman who was being introduced to unrequited love so harshly. It was not a fate such a practical woman deserved, I at least recognized that much and told her too, in stilting and drunken words. I felt very silly and very stupid explaining myself, though I tend to feel that way around women so it may not have been any fault of the alcohol. It was just shameful, that Jordan and Gatsby, who I respected and liked respectively, were dragged into the mess that a Carraway heart created.

Jordan snorted, called me fanciful, and by way of leaning back further in her chair let me know I was dismissed. Sighing, I slumped back too. July had washed over New York and the only way to find cool air was a curious way of sucking it in through your teeth like a whistle; for the past four nights people had been crawling down the avenues in sticky hives to sleep out in Central Park in the cooler night air. Jordan’s room and the offices of the city rose into the white-hot sky, ceiling fans rotating sluggishly and curtains blowing in the non-existent breeze as the shirts stuck to our backs and the background noises of the city ebbed and yawned under our feet. It was so hot this particular afternoon, that through the chink in the fluttering curtains I could not see across the bay to Gatsby’s great mansion at all, only a wide, heated expanse of sky with not a cloud in sight. So blue it stung my eyes. When I eventually would find the energy to stand up, I feared I would leave my shadow behind stuck to the leather chair with sweat.

Jordan had begun talking again, her low voice taking up the details of a golfing event she found thrilling. I had no desire to inaugurate myself to the sporting world, but it added a nice hum to my thoughts, so I contributed the occasional nod to keep the momentum going.

Despite the minimal view, my mind turned to my neighbour and the fourth of July festivities I was dreading whilst Jay Gatsby himself grew giddy on the night’s plans. It was to be his first party since the mess of last summer and his recover from Wilson’s almost-murder. I had been invited and I had not said I wouldn’t be attending.

I’d been in love with him for a little over a year at this point, with each day my heart expanded and dislodged another little piece of myself to make room. The nights I had fallen asleep thinking of that zenith of neighbour and humanity went into the hundreds.

Jordan knew all of this with just one glance in my direction. “Dear God, Nick,” I loathed myself in that moment- she sounded almost sympathetic. Loathed myself for inspiring such feelings in an unfeeling woman. I did not know where to put my eyes. “He’s not in love with Daisy now, you know.”

I snorted.

She inclined her chestnut crown, “Alright. But he knows he hasn’t a chance with her, which might as well be the same thing. The man wears pink suits, I’m sure he could be persuaded to lean our way.”

“So he settles for me, as the next best thing to Daisy?” The whiskey I gulped down was nowhere near as bitter as the truth. “No, Jordan, I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because- because- _because_ ,” I poured my seventh whiskey.

“Ah yes,” in one fluid motion she extended her browned arm and beckoned for a refill as well. “You’re feelings. Romanticism.” Weakness she really meant. “I can’t understand you, Nick. You claim to be an honest man- you even had me fooled into thinking it for a while. Only when it comes down to it, you’d prefer an unachievable dream to the possibility of something real, just because it won’t live up to your hopes. You’re nearly as bad as Gatsby himself.”

Her argument had not changed the past four times we had had this conversation. Sometimes in her room at the Buchanans’, sometimes in a hotel or her Aunt’s house, always with alcohol no matter the time of day. She made valid points, no one could argue that.

The liquor always made me bold. Or stupid, depending on who one asked. “Can you honestly tell me you would proposition her, right now? Go down there right now and just tell her?”

“No, don’t be ridiculous. I’m waiting until a time when I know she’ll be most receptive to the idea so I’ve the greatest chance of success.”

 _When she’s drunk_ I silently added, rather mean-spiritedly, deciding that Daisy not drinking was not the point. “You’re too practical.” A valid point, also, though it sounded pathetic in my mouth.

I had my umpteenth drink, emptying the bottle. Through the glass, the hearth swam and bubbled. I wanted to jump into the bottle or through; live in that distorted world where nothing was too bright and either my feelings for Jay would come together or I’d be so twisted and separated from them it would cease to matter anymore.

“Christ Nick,” Jordan frowned, “I’ll call you a taxi.”

“Not yet,” I protested, though I didn’t especially want to be here in my cousin’s new house (more of a palace) with a professional golfer in this stifling heat. “I haven’t heard all about your tournament last week yet.” It took me a few seconds to actually recall the proper word for a game of golf, which indicated I was certainly on my way to sozzled. Any sensible man would have put a halt to the drinking then and there, however Miss Baker was determined to ring me a taxi no matter what and it would have been a waste of good money to take a drive when I was still half able to walk.

She poured us both another drink and began to talk.

***

By the time I fell into the taxi and then puddled out of it at the end of the journey, my mind was completely gone. That was is the only reason I can fin to explain what happened next.

Bright halogen fishes darted thorough the night sky- I discovered, by way of the scent of rose bushes clinging to the air just above head height, that the cabbie had dropped me off not at my front door but halfway down the path, almost at Gatsby’s front door. His mansion was nowhere near as dazzling and loud as it usually was for his parties and the guests all seemed to be crowded together instead of milling and spiralling out across his estate at their leisure.

“Old sport?” At first, I thought I had merely imagined the question before staggering round in a half -circle, I blinked the object of my affections into view.

Being shot a year before had not wounded him in the slightest- the bullet went straight into his chest and only by the miracle of the man stopped short of his heart. Now he stood before me: alive, well and gorgeous. I was a little convinced that every man in New York wanted to kiss him or be him. Jay has always embodied the quality of a JC Leyendecker portrait, the real-life _Arrow Collar Man_ , his personality a force of nature that it almost stands at his side as an entirely separate person.

I said the only sensible thing available in such circumstances, “Hello.”

He took a step closer, frown wobbling in and out of focus. He was in a blue suit that night, perhaps in occasion of Independence Day, I don’t know, with silver accessories and his hair brushed until it glinted like gold. His appearance would have made those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away quiver all over the globe. I worried he was going to comment on my obvious state of dishevelment, yet all he said was: “I couldn’t find you at the party, old sport. So I hope you don’t mind but I went looking for you.” Gesturing with his cane in the direction of my cottage behind us, he trailed off, looking practically ill at ease. The fact I was responsible for putting that look on his face with my poor manners pained me.

“I’m sorry- I had every intention of coming, I swear it. Only Miss Baker called and asked me to tea- I’ve just come from there now, we rather lost track of the time.” I am an honest man, my secret pride is my truth-telling, yet there is a certain quality in a man that unlocks a certain weakness in me and have me lying until the moon turns blue.

Jay’s smile returned in full force. To this day, never have I regretted a single lie or falsehood I told in his benefit. Flickers of movement in the throng of the crowd and Jay hummed lightly, turning to look in the same direction. “They’re about to start the fireworks, old sport.”

It was a question that wasn’t a question. Or it was the answer to my question or I had asked the wrong question. Something along those lines. "Well-" I was struggling to keep my chin off my chest, so tired was I. "If there's time and it wouldn't be too great an imposition, (I struggled over the pronunciation of that for a few moments with my leaden tongue.) I'd be more than happy to watch the fireworks with you." At once I was beset with anxiety- had I said too much? Given away too much? Was 'with you' _really_ necessary in the sentence?

One of the best qualities of Jay Gatsby is his natural superiority, the arrogant aloofness which raises him above all other men. And my comment went uncommented on. "What a capital idea, old sport!" Luckily, he led the way with his arm hooking over mine, for it was rather beyond me by that time to walk from Point A to Point B unaided, and certainly it was a great help keeping upright.

A few teasing whistles and sparklers began to erupt just as we stepped onto the marble patio at the back of the crowd. I had the misfortune of glancing over at Jay as he looked skywards in delight. Gold showered down on him.

***

My brevity must be excused: the firework display was spectacular, as everything associated to Gatsby is with the exception of myself (unless spectacularly foolish is applied, I suppose). Only my attentions were elsewhere throughout. On Jay, mostly. That statue of a man standing a mere three inches to my left, still with his arm looped through mine… I was on fire. I was warm like I felt last summer I would never be again. _(I was happy.)_ Childish delight played out over his face and I delighted to observe, unobserved and unobtrusive. So engrossed that it came as a shock when the firework display was over and I roused from my state of wonder to find we were the last people left outside and the mansion had fallen dark. However much I wished to blame my actions on the alcohol consumption, my thoughts were entirely my own. Jay was beginning to frown again- his frowns did not mar his beauty; they were as natural on his face as the bend in a river. It saddened me, though, as it always did to see him experience emotion akin to the crippling lows he suffered over my cousin when his dream was dashed to pieces. "Are you alright, old sport?" I was terrified he'd see how drunk I was and terrified I'd soon sober up and- terrified. I was paralysed with terror and had been for well over a year. All of a sudden I had tremendous sympathy for my cousin, if this was how it always felt to love Jay Gatsby then I could no more fault her decision than I could the sun for setting each day. "Old sport?" My silence had worried him- no, concerned him, worry would tarnish him, not worry.

Seizing my shoulders, he forced me to turn more to face him, "Nick?" And I leaned forward and kissed him.

It had no thought behind it, nor any technique or finesse. The most an objective voyeur could have rated the experience was 'earnest'. It was the culmination of everything I had ever wanted in my life up until that point and when Jay's arms dropped from my shoulders the world began to fall apart around me. I ended the kiss and reeled, from both that and the whiskey, swaying on my feet until finally my forehead dropped onto Jay's left shoulder, at a point just over his collar bone. Even with the concealment of the peacock blue suit I could see his heart beat tinnying away inside, convinced myself I could hear his pulse. How close he had come to being noting more than dead less than a year ago! At the climax of last summer, there was nothing I would not have sacrificed for the surety he would come out of it all alive. Now I had lost the man forever.

Perhaps God makes you repay debts in strange, long ways.

I am not a godly man, _think how happy you were, for him to be alive_ I tried to remind myself. The man didn't move beneath me except for the beat of his heart- now truly the stony Michelangelo he had always been in my mind. I could not console myself on any pleasure, remembered false or otherwise: I had sealed the end of our friendship with one kiss.

"I just..." working to speak took time. As if every part of my body was weighed down with clothes that had been submerged in a bloody pool. _Oh Christ_. "I know you don't feel the same and, I know what this means. But I had to do that, I- I just had to do that."

I stumbled back a few steps and only then raised my head. Meeting his eyes... it was the fantastic look of someone who had killed a man. “I needed to do that,” I repeated, no longer able to see his mansion. My vision was clouding over with tears as the clouds came over the sky- light refracted in the salt droplets and gave him a halo. I could not imagine a man who deserved it more. “I, um, well. Thank you. For that. And thank you for the party.” I wanted to say more and couldn’t, though sitting at my typewriter in subsequent days, hundreds of pages poured out with the ink smears of what I should have said, lives in which he loved me back. I wanted him to say more and he didn’t either.

I took my leave, leaving a piece of myself behind with every step and knowing he would not follow this gory trail of breadcrumbs to my little cottage.

***

Life for an indeterminable length after that was wretched. I was damn near a recluse. Where before I rarely drank, unless out visiting _certain_ acquaintances or keeping company that inspired the need, now I drank and did little else. Maybe ‘recluse’ is too kind: I went to work, saw people, then came home. I think perhaps one or even two times I went to work in the morning drunk, but I was too drunk to care and too drunk to remember. I looked across the bay often, that bay of blue grass lawn immaculately trimmed each week by a servant with a new face and could not find an ounce of hope within me. Growing stronger each day was a queer desire to telephone Daisy and apologize for every mean thought I had ever had about her; Gatsby knew exactly where I was and not a word from him. I felt incredibly unwanted and can only imagine she spent five years feeling the same. Life was just a long expanse of apology.

Not to say I wasn’t in the absolute depths of despair (I was) but perhaps the above picture is not the most encompassing… In addition to being heartbroken, I was almost bored- restless being another similar and still not entirely fitting adjective. The experience hammered home how friendless I was. After the riotous excursion into the human heart that was my thirtieth birthday, I had shut out everyone except for Jay and I was lonely. There’s no way for me to explain myself other than simply: I was lonely. Aching for the one thing I could not have. I’ve always had a tendency towards a sort of anxious melancholia, which at least in my mind excused the drinking. But I was bored in the fashion that made you dream of catching a train without looking at its destination on the spur of a hot moment. Then I’d remind myself I had work in the morning and have a drink to calm my mind down.

And at about three in the afternoon, when the hangover had receded enough I could think and at about six when my hand shad stopped shaking enough I could finally shave that day, I would start wondering again. This restless dying took a long time.

Say what you will of Germans and MG Fifteens, but they did not leave you hanging about long enough to look at your watch.

***

Thus, it was completely understandable and completely miraculous that one Friday night instead of taking the train home to sleep under the eaves of my own roof, I stumbled in the wake of a small crowd into Central Park and claimed myself a grassy spot near the lake. Summer was making itself known and it was the third _hottest day of the year_ and I felt invigorated as I had not felt since July 4th, glad to be a part of something bigger than myself, feeling connected with this strange band of people with the thought of sleeping tonight in the open to cool down. A sense of community I don’t think I had ever experienced before in my life.

To say I was sober would be a lie- I was not completely inebriated, all my mental faculties were bearing the brunt of my alcohol consumption quite well, yet I could not have trusted myself behind the wheel of a car or even just to hold a pencil.

Familiarly, the setting sun came as a shock. I wondered where the past four hours had gone, because at some point I had become a very modest part of a crowd. I was not the only one who was imbibing a substance, given the rowdy crowing and close contact. It seemed a game had begun, of the variety reserved for rambunctious college students. Consisting mostly of egging one on to do something humiliating which the others found funny. And to my immense surprise I stood up, detached from my body and brain, and announced to the group of my idea about embarking on a train at random. Sorry to say this was not the most foolish thing I had ever done in my life. It felt undeniably _good_ , however, when I had always before loathed being the centre of attention. The space between my old self and now was the Grand Canyon.

“I think you should go for it, old sport.”

I whipped round, quickly oblivious to the crowd again. Of course you know who was stood there, cane at a jaunty angle and an unreadable expression on his face. The people’s cheers walked me on air out of the park gates; I was floating until Jay’s arm tethered me firmly to reality. “We need to talk, old sport.” He led me to his shiny red car and we drove past the train station on the way back to West Egg. I think I fell asleep, though I don’t know how on earth it was possible with electricity thrumming through my veins like the pylon wires overhead. Neither of us looked at the road when we passed the garage that used to be called Wilson’s. This wasn’t a good thing to do but it was the only way either of us could manage.

As the moon got higher in the sky and the road behind us longer, I began to grow resentful, the alcohol souring my blood. Resentful of Gatsby and everything he’d ever done- why did _he_ grow to be superior to every other man, why did _he_ make me fall in love with him, why did _he_ , if he was so great, not see how unachievable his dream was? Why did he love my cousin and not me?

“I still love you, you know,” I told him, and I meant it to hurt. He left me without a response; the second the car stopped I was scrabbling to open my front door (which I often left unlocked to make it easier for the constant tremor my hands had recently acquired) and hurried up the stairs to throw up in my toilet.

The cool hand of a saint blessed the back of my neck and I sobbed, purged of all my anger and with nothing to shield me from my misery. Why did he always have to be so kind? I cried. Apologised for being a mess and for loving him and for loving him some more and for being sustained by the same thing that was killing me.

“You don’t look so put-together nowadays, old sport.”

Even now, in the lowest of lows of life and plumbing, he could not call me ‘Nick’. I sobbed harder and curled away from him, heedless of the mess I was in and the damage lying on the floor would do to my clothes. For some reason I thought of my father, who had called that morning and without sparing a single superfluous word reminded me that I was acting the foolish toddler and if not for the grace of my Aunts would not be so fortunate as to be in the East and living mediocrely. Gatsby had become my green light and I had no natural vitality or hope to sustain it without using my heart as kindling.

I had no idea if I managed to articulate all of this to him being in the decrepit state that I was, interspersed with many, _many_ tears. “You must understand, Jay- with the way you love Daisy…” I struggled to inhale and stopped talking, breathing carefully and delicately, my lungs made of glass.

“Ah, well.” Discomfort did not sit well on his face. Then in contrast to that was how completely at ease he was, kneeling beside me on my bathroom floor in the pitch dark. He was worth equally as much cast in silver shadows as in golden sunbeams. “Yes. About that, old sport. I’m not so sure I do love her.”

“W- what?” No. That was as factual as the encyclopaedia: Jay loved her. He did, he did, he must, why had I been- if he did not even-?

“I- I think, old sport, it’s you.”

 _“What?_ ”

“I think- I definitely loved Daisy, before. I cannot say when I stopped, but I don’t anymore. And- well, it would just make sense, that it’s you, wouldn’t it? I think about you all the time.”

“You haven’t got any other friends,” I pointed out, half-unkindly. Why I was being so obstinate when offered everything I had ever wanted I have never been able to unravel.

“Old sport. Nick,” he leaned forward and cupped my cheek, the way every young man wants to be touched. “Doesn’t it just make sense that it’s you?”

“No.” I pulled away from his touch again, immediately feeling starved in its absence. “No, none of this makes any fucking sense to me at all.”

His answer was to lean forward and kiss me. Chastely- which I didn’t blame him for, given that I hadn’t brushed my teeth. Sensibly, given that I did not know if I’d get the chance again, I seized a fistful of his hair in my hand and used the other to grab his waistcoat and tug on an expensive mother of pearl button; the ceiling was now a mile high and the dark little room had expanded to enclose the entire world.

When it ended, I discreetly put the torn-off button in my trouser pocket. I breathed out, the sigh of relief juddering into several powerful sobs that set the tremors off again. Alarmed, Jay rubbed his hands over my arms, no doubt trying to warm me up. “I’m sorry, I’ve-“ I even had to pause to wipe my nose with the back of my hand, “-I’ve not been well, lately. I’m a complete disaster.”

“All over me?”

“All over you.” He inspired my greatest of writing abilities and tempted all my weaknesses; I was putty in his hands and I was completely fine with that if it meant I would forever be in his hands. “Now you know how Daisy felt, I suppose. How is it?”

“Huge.” Carefully, he undid my tie, then unhooked my braces. (I let him.) “Like… like a tsunami, old sport. You’ve heard of tsunamis?” I nodded. He nodded back, “Huge. Like I’m being swept away. But- and if you don’t mind me saying this- I think there’s one thing that you forget.”

Exhausted, I could only tilt my head, _oh?_

“I’ve not any of the worries that Daisy had, last year when I asked her to choose between me and Tom. And… you’re just Nick.”

I roused myself enough to insist, “I don’t want a pity fuck.”

“It isn’t!” he ran a hand through his hair and swore tenderly. “But… God, Nick, you’re the only person who ever did anything for me just to be nice. You never asked for anything- at first I thought you must be a con-artist. Or a complete doormat. It’s taken me all these months to get my head outta my ass and realise I even like you. The reason I was so confused was because I didn’t have to earn you or… achieve you. Nothing I have impresses you- not even my fancy typewriter! You just want… _me_.”

“Months?” I parroted.

“Months?”

“You just said it’s been months.”

“Since you kissed me? Yes.”

“Oh” I said. “Has it been months?”

“…Today’s September seventh, Nick.”

“Oh.” Heartbreak had turned the past two months and three days into eternity and the blink of an eye. “I suppose it’s _really_ too late for me to have a late birthday, huh?”

“Well, as luck would have it, I’ve been saving your gift for you,” Jay leaned forward and kissed me again. Tears dropped onto my cheeks as I deepened the kiss. My head was pounding, and I needed to go to bed above all things, but I needed to kiss him just a bit longer.

**Author's Note:**

> happy july 4th! What better gift for america's birthday than YEARNING?
> 
> notes:
> 
> people really did sleep out in Central Park during heatwaves - see 1927 by Bill Bryson  
> JC Leyendecker was the artist behind the most famous advertisement in America, the Arrow Collar Man, which is what Daisy meant in the book when she said gatsby looks 'so cool'. Leyendecker? Gay. The Arrow Collar Man was based on his lover (side note, how fucking, like, he loved the guy so much he made him a symbol of america. that's love, baby!)  
> the title is from Allen Ginsberg's poem "America" which i thought very fitting  
> MR 15s ere the machine guns Germany used in world war two  
> Hemingway's first NOVEL wasn't until 1926 but he had published a collection of short stories in Paris in 1923 and Gatsby is rich enough he could have got hold of a copy.


End file.
